Every seasoned SEO expert knows that importance of backlinks and tries all the possible white hat techniques to acquire as many links as possible. One of the best techniques to acquire quality backlinks in guest blogging, but since Matt Cutts of Google warned about too much guest blogging activities, SEO gurus are in a catch 22 situation. Should you stop guest blogging? Not at all. But you should broaden your horizon and find out new ways to collect backlinks.
So, what can replace guest blogging and help you get even more backlinks from top ranking sites? The answer is “infographics”! Some internet marketers fail to realize its true potential, but the data shows that infographics generate more backlinks than all the others link building strategies. Readers are curious about infographics as well. In fact, between 2010 and 2012, the search volume for infographics increased more than 800%.
Create top quality infographics
Infographics are visual and thus, creating them is a lot more difficult than writing a 1000 word guest post. It takes a lot more time, skills, ideas and energy to create succesful infographics. You can either hire a company that specializes in infographics or design it on your own. Since not all the companies can spend thousands of dollars for online marketing and SEO, here are some guidelines to create your own infographic.
Ask your entire team for idea: When you need an idea for the infographic, bring your team together and ask them to share their ideas. This way, you will be able to select the best idea for your infographic. People love to read fresh content and in order to know what is trending in your business niche; you can search SocialMention, Google News, and Google Trends etc.
Design must be apt: Since infographic is a visual medium, design needs to be attractive to capture readers’ attention. Unless people like the infographic at once, they will not be interested to read the content. You can use free templates from various online resources to make your task simple.
How can infographics be used to earn links?
Unless other blogs/sites share your infographic you won’t get backlinks, but how do you convince the third party site owners to use your infographic? Here is the formula- tell stories through your infographics and take advantage of an email campaign to reach the admin of top ranking blogs/sites.
Tell a story: When a company tells a story, people listen, but when a company tries to sell, they overlook it immediately. You must share data and hard facts, but that needs to be done in a fluid narrative style. For example, if you offer web design services, you can tell the story of a client who now earns millions because you designed a beautiful site for him. You can also give growth percentage of e-commerce, describe the benefits of online business and how web design can shape a brand etc., but those points will act as support for the story you are telling through your infographic.
Intelligent email campaign: Unless you own a very famous company, nobody is going to share your infographic with a backlink. You have to convince them to post your infographic in their blog. So, give them a reason to post your infographic. Instead of just sending a mail with a link to your infographic, you can write “I read your article on web design trends and think that you highlighted some of the most crucial trends which will rule the web design industry not just this year, but in the coming years as well. Our web design company recently released an infographic that explains the growth rate of web design and why more companies should focus on responsive web design. Would you like to share the infographic in your post? As a token of our gratitude we will promote your company in our social media channels.”
So, basically, you are informing the third party admin that you read his article; your infographic is related to his post and more importantly, by sharing your infographic he will get something in return.
Also, you should write an introduction for your infographic so that the blogger can copy paste it in his article and then share your infographic. This way, it won’t look artificial and readers will consider it a part of the main article.
Follow the suggestions mentioned above and you will be able to fetch hundreds of backlinks with the help of infographics.
